


In Nobody's Eyes But Mine

by dresdendisco



Category: Panic! at the Disco
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:14:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25568062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dresdendisco/pseuds/dresdendisco
Summary: Ryan had thought he was immune to the spontaneous little moans and screams Brendon is capable of making from their shows, but it's just different when they're all naked.
Relationships: Audrey Kitching/Brendon Urie, Audrey Kitching/Jac Vanek, Ryan Ross/Brendon Urie, Ryan Ross/Jac Vanek
Kudos: 12





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> this work is not mine!!!  
> i had this saved a couple years ago and now cannot find the original link and author. im assuming it has been deleted.  
> this work isn't mine nor am i claiming its mine, i am just sharing.  
> have a good day!!

**One**

Ryan/Jac, Brendon/Audrey

The first time is Brendon's idea, but only when he's really being an asshole about it does Ryan pretend that's an excuse, that when Brendon stretched his arms above his head and joked, "Let's take this party upstairs!" he meant they should go to the room and take off their clothes and fuck their girlfriends three feet away from each other.

When it comes to sex, Brendon understands what he's saying maybe sixty percent of the time, and forty or so percent of that is just a lucky guess. Ryan knows exactly how much sex Brendon has had in his life (more than most barely ex-Mormons his age), how many girls he's fucked (three) and how many times it took before he actually made one come (five times total with two different girls, and "oh my God, Ryan, it's like some kind of unmapped no-man's-land down there, how the hell am I supposed to know what's going to work or if it's even working or what she wants, really"). 

Ryan thinks, charitably, that eventually Brendon will take to sex like he must have to music, that clearly one day being taught notes and meters and chords just caught up to him at once and he could  _ play _ . There's no good reason to imagine that Brendon won't one day have a similar breakthrough with sex, or that it wouldn't be hysterical to be there when it happens.

Mostly, Ryan's glad he had the benefit of fucking the same girl a lot of times, relatively speaking, for being a couple of kids who mostly had to figure out where they could go before they tried out what they could do. Do it enough times with the same girl and you get bored and start trying anything you can think of, and Ryan's had that, but Brendon hasn't, not even yet with Audrey, with whom Brendon has had like two-thirds of his total sexual experience. 

Because no one seems to have any good reason why not, the four of them go up to a room, Brendon and Audrey and Ryan and Jac, and it only occurs to Ryan as they're pushing the button for their floor what it might look like, what somebody might think they're going to do up there all together. Audrey and Jac giggle a little in the elevator, passing notes in wide-eyed secret speak. Brendon waggles his eyebrows at Ryan wildly, his completely unbreakable code for "I'm getting laid" and Ryan doesn't mean to indulge him, it's not really cute at all, it's completely immature, but he smiles anyway, smiles and socks Brendon lightly on the shoulder. 

As soon as they get in the room, Brendon flops on one bed, loudly, dramatically, and Audrey climbs on top of him, tugging at the collar of his shirt with her teeth, licking up his Adam's apple. She settles on top of him, one knee on each side of his hips, muscles standing out as she squeezes her legs together. "Whoa," Brendon says, "I thought maybe we were just going to --" and then luckily for everyone's sake Audrey shuts him up, because knowing Brendon he was about to finish that sentence with something ridiculous like "braid each other's hair." 

Jac pulls Ryan to the other bed, spreading out on her back diagonally and pulling him on top of her. He hears Brendon say Ryan's name, wetly, like Audrey's tongue is still in his mouth, and then Audrey says something that sounds like, "I know you like putting on a show," and Brendon gasps maybe, or groans, or says Ryan's name again, and Ryan only realizes he's stopped kissing Jac when she drags her square nails down his throat, slow, not trying to hurt him, just saying hello like she does when he's spaced out a little. 

She smiles then, and peeks back over her shoulder at Audrey, whose hand is in Brendon's pants now, whose grin is wicked around the edges as she whispers something too soft for them to hear. Jac pushes up against Ryan, her ankle tugging him down, and she's still smiling towards Audrey when he leans down to suck her nipple through her dress, even though Audrey's probably not looking at them at all. 

This isn't why he asked Jac if she had any friends Brendon might like, but he's wondered about it a little, late nights when she falls asleep like she doesn't even remember they're sharing a bed, wondered about how she didn't really take him seriously until Audrey could come along too. "Fucking dykes, huh," Brendon said last week, looking at new photos Jac had posted, and Ryan hadn't been sure whether or on whose account to be offended, so he'd just laughed and said, "You wish," and elbowed Brendon hard in the ribs. 

Jac undoes his jeans, slides her hands inside and runs the edge of one nail down the crease of his thigh. He tries to say no, he thinks the word clearly even if it never makes it past his lips.  _ No, they're right there, no, come on, not here, not like this. _

She's still looking over her shoulder, like it's okay to just watch and want and wonder, and as she starts jerking him off she reaches up with her other hand and nudges his chin in that direction, too, so they're panting into each other's cheeks as Audrey pushes her skirt up and her tights down and unmistakably slides inch by inch down Brendon's dick. Audrey sighs, scratchy and content, and as she hangs her head back a bit she opens her eyes and stares right back at them. Ryan thrusts into Jac's tight fist, scrabbling now to get her underwear off, to push inside and fuck her, fuck, if they're going to do this like this he's going to do it right, be a fucking rock star, do the kind of shit he's sure his dad thinks is the only reason he ever picked up a guitar in the first place. 

Ryan hates that, hates giving into those cheap ideas of what it means to be in a band, but Jac is really wet and grunting like how she gets when she's too turned on to act cool about it, and Ryan had thought he was immune to the spontaneous little moans and screams Brendon is capable of making from their shows, but it's just different when they're all naked. 

Brendon says, "Oh shit," and the other bed's headboard slams loudly against the wall, just once, and Ryan comes so hard he thinks he pulls a muscle.


	2. Two

**Two**

Jac/Audrey, Ryan, Brendon

A flying square of black cotton hits Ryan in the face, which is when he admits he's not paying as much attention to the events unfolding in front of him as he probably should be. Jac's bare shoulderblades rise as she pulls Audrey's dress over her head, and then the girls are naked, kissing sloppy and giggly, breasts rubbing up against each other as they lean into it, Audrey's hands on Jac's back. 

They're not exactly paying attention to Ryan either, so he looks back at Brendon sitting beside him on the other bed, watching with equal parts rapture and terror. Brendon's still surprised he gets laid at all, despite talking Ryan's ear off for the past 10 days about how much he can't believe they did  _ that _ , as he calls it, and then did that again, and then did that enough times that Brendon is probably the only person still counting how frequently they've fucked their girlfriends in the same room. 

Enough times that Spencer's noticed, grabbing Ryan's elbow once as he trailed after the other three and asking, "Hey, what are you doing up there anyway?" Ryan didn't say anything, not out loud, not like that meant Spencer didn't have his answer, his fingers loosening on Ryan's arm, trailing down so they were just standing there side by side until Jac called his name and he went. 

Ryan's pretty sure Brendon's only been talking about it with him, given how much time they've spent talking about it, Brendon's exuberant whisper elevating refrain by refrain until Ryan has to shh him and frown and then smile reassuringly, hoping he didn't scare Brendon into needing to talk to Spencer or Brent or, even worse, someone else entirely about it. About  _ that _ , that thing they do that means now he knows in shuddering, foul-mouthed glory exactly how Brendon sounds when he comes, when someone else makes him come. It's different than how Brendon sounds jerking off in his bunk, more surprised, less grateful, more fucking bossy and dirty and demanding. 

And knowing how Brendon sounds is nothing compared to knowing how he looks, Brendon's come face burned into his brain like a bad scar, how his eyelids flutter and his jaw drops open and he bites his lip no matter what fucking twisted thing he's in the middle of saying. He tells Audrey to fuck him, to suck him, to ride him and bend over and give it up and once he starts it's like he can't shut up, or won't, or doesn't think he should, and he does it all with his stupid innocent wide eyes glinting at the corners, like he barely knows what he's saying, like he can't be held accountable for it because it just moves through him like the word of God or something. 

Ryan's only tried to jerk off once since they started this, because he needs a little fucking stamina if he's going to keep up with Brendon, the non-stop marathon fucking machine. When he gave in one morning on the bus, he couldn't get a hand on his dick without hearing Brendon in his head, without seeing Brendon with a chin tucked over Audrey's shoulder, lips wet and parted, voice husky and words caught in his throat as he tilts his hips up one last time and comes. 

"Ryan," Brendon says now, in that same hoarse voice, and fuck, he's staring back at Ryan with his lust-stupid eyes and a sheen of sweat on his forehead. Ryan's not sure how long he's been watching Brendon instead of their girlfriends fucking each other, but there's no way the correct answer's not  _ too fucking long. _

Maybe he's overthinking things, overanalyzing them, and that's obviously Brendon's department. Brendon and his barely checked sexual shame, Brendon whose rationalizations for their newfound favorite hobby include arguing with perhaps a tenth of his actual intellect how doing  _ that _ was just like watching porn. Just like how they all used to do together in Dan's basement, porn and pool and eventually everyone gave up slinking away to the bathroom to jerk off and did it out on the open, hands in their shorts on the couch or, once, a contest to see who could shoot the farthest across the room. Spencer, weirdly, had won by like two feet. 

The third or fourth time Brendon used that idiotic argument Ryan couldn't restrain himself anymore, had rolled his eyes and said, "No, if it were  _ really _ like porn the girls would be fucking each other, you dumb-ass." And he hadn't meant it as a suggestion, sincerely, he'd just gotten really fucking sick of indulging Brendon's inability to shut the fuck up and enjoy whatever it was they were doing, because even Ryan knew that whatever it was they were doing was only going to actually stay any fucking good, would only continue to make him come so hard it was like he'd never even known he  _ had _ a cock before, if they could manage not to kill it by thinking more about how or who they were fucking than actually doing it.

Ryan wasn't in the room when Brendon asked Audrey to do it, and he wasn't around when she asked Jac if she'd do it, or when they discussed how they'd done it before minus the audience, unless Ryan is totally wrong about that, and he doesn't think he is. Brendon slid up to him in the dressing room, mouth hot against Ryan's ear, and said, "So Audrey is totally going to fuck Jac tonight," and Ryan had accidentally bit his tongue trying to open his mouth without shrugging Brendon away. "Or maybe Jac is going to fuck her, I don't know, I don't really know how these things work," Brendon said, still talking, "but this is seriously the best fucking idea you've ever had, Ryan," and then he was gone, stripping off his t-shirt, twirling towards the wardrobe case, singing "Bohemian Rhapsody" at the top of his lungs. 

Ryan wishes they'd put some music on before they started, something, anything to be filling the air in the room that isn't just Jac and Audrey moaning or Brendon saying his name again, low and a little confused. "Yeah," Ryan says, rubbing his wounded tongue against his lip, and turns back to watch the girls. 

Audrey is finger fucking Jac, her wrist moving fast as Jac restlessly curls one leg around Audrey's shoulder, her ribs, her ass. Audrey bends down, looking up Jac's body as she licks around her hand, watching so carefully, so intently. Ryan's not sure he's ever paid that much attention to a girl when he fucks her, though if you'd asked him that morning he would have said that was bullshit, that he was great in bed, that he knew every single place on Jac's body that could make her sigh or moan or come. He hasn't known her half as long as Audrey, though, and even though he can be pretty fixated on people he's never been this busy while also trying to be an awesome boyfriend. Honestly it's hard to find time, most days, to think about anything but the band. 

Jac makes a sound when she comes that Ryan's never heard, a growling noise, and Audrey still doesn't stop, flipping Jac over onto her stomach and bending down to whisper in her ear, something so soft that even in the quiet room filled only with Brendon's harsh breaths Ryan can't quite make it out. When Audrey sits up she hauls Jac back with her until Jac is straddling Audrey's thighs, Audrey still sliding her fingers across Jac's clit, Jac's sighs still jagged and punctuated. 

"Are you just going to sit there?" Audrey asks in their direction, pulling away a strand of Jac's hair with her free hand so she can kiss Jac's neck. 

Brendon stands up fast. "Ladies," he says, in his show announcer voice, "where would you like me?"

"Naked," Audrey says. "That would be a good start." 

Jac hiccups a laugh and squirms a little, like she's not done even now. Maybe she wants Audrey's fingers back inside her. This is usually the part where Ryan fucks her, when she's hot and slick and her muscles are soft and loose. He usually lies on top of her, her legs around his waist, and he fucks her as slow as he can until he can't any more. Since they started whatever it is that they've been doing, Ryan's fucked Jac in more positions than all their times before put together, some twisted acrobatic competition with the intensely flexible Brendon.

Brendon can barely stand to fuck Audrey in only one position at a time, always seems to be itching to move, to turn them around, to prop a leg up somehow and try a new angle. Audrey bounces around and laughs when Brendon's cock slips out and when she comes it's fast, like a car without headlights around a sharp curve. Ryan didn't need to know that about his best friend's girlfriend. About his girlfriend's best friend. He supposes in retrospect with that kind of set-up even had he not learned first-hand the information was inevitably going to be exchanged.

Brendon's big toe stubs into Ryan's shin. "You heard the woman," Brendon says. "Strip!" 

Brendon loves running around their room naked, now even more, and it's not like before he was so fucking shy about pulling down his pants or forgetting to pull them back up or put them back on. He only gets dressed in the morning, and then very badly, so Ryan has to help zip his hoodie or, once, button his jeans so Brendon didn't wander into the hall looking worse than he'd come in. They probably both always look a little worse, if the dead stares Spencer gives them still translate the same as in years past. 

Ryan doesn't mind all the nudity, not exactly. The lack of clothes really pales in significance to the fucking. He watches as his fingers unbutton his pants, his elbows as his arms cross to pull off his shirt, his knees as he bends down to untie his shoes and kick off his underwear. When he raises his eyes to the bed again, Audrey and Jac are kissing, now lying on their sides with their heads near where he and Brendon are standing, naked. 

Brendon clears his throat obnoxiously. "Now what?"

The girls both roll onto their stomachs, folding their hands beneath their chins like a practiced piece of choreography. Jac shrugs. "Now it's our turn to watch." 

"Watch what?" Brendon actually says, forever the king of opening his mouth before he's decided what to do with it, and Ryan says, "No."

Audrey whines a little. "It's our turn," she says, and Jac adds, to Ryan, "It's not like you haven't --" and Ryan says, "No," again, louder and meaner and why he ever fucking thought it was a good idea to tell her that, he doesn't know. It wasn't a big deal, him and Spencer and a few kisses to figure shit out, and then him and this guy at his school he never even told Spencer about, still not a big fucking deal, and maybe he should have said it like that instead of maybe implying just a little it was a bigger fucking deal than he knew how to handle at the time, that it made him question things and the world and himself, but for Christ's sake he didn't even mean that part of it when he fucking said it, he just wanted her to get how he didn't question  _ anything _ when they were together.

He really wishes he wasn't fucking naked right now. Jac is staring at him, flushed in her cheeks, not her chest where she gets red during sex. She looks mad and disappointed and maybe suspicious and then she just stares down at the comforter like that's easier than trying to figure out what is going on in her boyfriend's head. Audrey isn't looking at Brendon at all, she's glaring at Ryan, like they had some plan and he was supposed to be in on it, like he's a total fucking idiot for not doing something they've never once talked about in the slightest. Then she rolls her eyes and unfolds one arm to put it around Jac's shoulders, lips brushing her skin as she leans in. Jac lifts her chin and they kiss, even more gently than before, like they're capable of being careful with each other when no one else would bother.

When Audrey turns on her back, she pulls Jac on top of her and lets Jac bites down her throat, leaving angry red marks that match the twist of Jac's bitter smile as Audrey says, "You can leave now, or you can get yourselves off." She puts her hand over Jac's eyes and when she pulls it away, they stay closed. She flips her middle finger in their direction and then closes her own eyes, like it's that easy to shut them out, like they were never even there in the first place. 

Ryan sits down on their bed and Brendon follows, their bare legs pressed against each other. "What," Brendon says, and his voice is shaky, unsure. He's probably looking at Ryan for answers, too. Ryan can feel Brendon's breath in short staccato bursts on his shoulder and he doesn't know what to say, he doesn't know how to apologize for not having seen this coming, for putting Brendon in a place where he was going to be asked to decide something Ryan's not sure he's even gotten around to considering. 

Ryan shakes his head and feels the short ends of his hair wisping across Brendon's forehead. He squeezes his eyes tight and reaches down to grab his own dick, still hard, still interested in whatever fucked up things are going on in the room whether he can see it or not. He stops to lick his palm and when he starts again he feels Brendon suck in a breath, his arm rising and falling against Ryan's with his lungs, then a long wet licking noise, and then Brendon's right elbow is colliding with Ryan's ribs as he jerks himself off, too. 

He never scoots farther away, neither of them do, and Ryan knows he's going to have a bruise in the morning, and he opens his eyes to look down and see how it's possible that Brendon's arms are even fucking skinner than he'd realized and there, right there, is Brendon's hand slipping and sliding over his cock, a twist around the head, a tight pull, a thrust into his fist, and as he comes over his hand he swallows a tight, panicked moan, and Ryan feels down deep in his spine how close he is too, how close he is and how quiet Brendon is and how he doesn't know anything, when it fucking comes right down to it, about how Brendon would be in bed if it were just the two of them.


	3. Three

**Three**

Ryan, Brendon, strippers

Brendon slaps down a stack of singles on the bar, and the ragged edges of dollar bills cling to Ryan's glass as his 7-Up sloshes over the rim. Brendon drums his hands on his knees, quick flashes of knuckles and palms as he leans back in the cheap vinyl chair and props his shoes up on the railing. His toothy grin is repeated in every mirrored surface, glowing like a ghost in a trick haunted house. 

Ryan reminds himself this was his idea, his apology, a mea culpa consisting of a couple of lapdances at the least seedy club the tour's sound guy had heard of in whichever middle America state they were in today. They had time to spare and a crew all too happy to drop off their prize pupils for some safely, laughably un-rebellious behavior. Ryan should have planned for the burning frustration of having to convince the bouncer they were old enough to get in, if not to drink, and for how even the least seedy of strip clubs makes him feel complicit in the same kind of maudlin mediocrity he was happy to leave behind in Vegas. He should have been better prepared for how Brendon's smiles and sideways glances mean nothing more than  _ look, look at her, look at the rack on that one.  _

That was the point, after all. This is Ryan's careful, quiet compensation for forcing the issue, for letting the girls think it was their right to ask for an even trade even though it was obviously not at all the same, not in the slightest. 

"If you had just kissed him," Jac tried the day after, and he'd gotten up and walked out of the room because it wasn't his conversation to have. It wasn't his to decide. Still someone had to take responsibility for the whole mess, and it was no more fair to force that on Brendon than it was to expect he'd be anything other than elated at a whole buffet of boobs and bare legs twined around brass poles. 

"Yeah, baby, work it," Brendon says, and slides a crisply folded bill through the side strap of a girl's baby blue thong. She bends down and brushes the curve of one breast across Brendon's forehead and he giggles, delighted. "Do you think," he says, leaning towards Ryan to watch as she sashays away, "that strippers use some kind of special lotion or something? They're just so much  _ softer _ than normal girls. I wonder what kind it is. Do you think she'd tell me? Do you think we could buy some? Do you think it would work on me or is it, like, just for girl skin?"

"Brendon," Ryan says, and Brendon looks like he expects an actual answer to at least one of those questions, but all Ryan has to offer is, "do you want a lapdance or something?"

"Oh," Brendon says, and stabs his straw into his Coke. For Brendon's eighteenth birthday they'd taken him to a club where Brent's brother convinced the doorman to let Spencer in, too, and they'd spent maybe twenty each in tips working up the nerve before they realized all they had to do was say yes when one of the girls leaned down and asked if they wanted something more. Brendon is okay at saying yes but maybe he's still skittish about making the first move. 

Ryan sighs, nodding towards a girl with long blonde hair and a short plaid skirt. She'd danced to Green Day, at least. "What about that one?"

Brendon pulls a face, like  _ eww _ , and then seems to catch himself.

"So pick somebody else," Ryan shrugs, and watches as Brendon scans the possibilities: three girls perched on stools by the bar, one standing around waiting to go on, two making their rounds, looking for buyers. His eyes linger on a slender brown-haired girl wearing a lacy white teddy. She's busy being turned down by a fat man in a tight vest, and when she stands back up, Ryan catches her eye and jerks his chin. 

She picks her way over, tiny feet in stacked heels with white feathery trim, and the hand she slides down Ryan's neck and under his shirt is warm and silky smooth. "No," he says, "for him," and she doesn't waste a second before shifting around, cooing hello and giving some fake name and asking if Brendon wants to go in the back.

"Uh, sure," Brendon says, and she tugs him to his feet. "But -- Ryan, aren't you, come on." Ryan doesn't know what Brendon's asking, but he stands up anyway. "There's gotta be," Brendon says, and Ryan doesn't know at that moment which are worse, the sentences Brendon never finishes or the ones that go on forever. 

"Who do you like?" the girl asks, smiling indulgently like it's okay if he's nervous, if he's not sure how to say what he wants. "What's your type?"

There's a girl with short, dark hair and shiny black boots and an emerald-green bra who danced to Guns N Roses, and as soon as he points her out, she comes. "Stacy," she introduces herself, and leads them to the back, making small talk about the shitty town they're in, the weather, the way it's always dead in the club on Tuesdays, and then the money part's done and she's pressing Ryan down onto high-backed cushions. 

The booth they're in is a half-circle, low-lit and barely concealed from the rest of the club. A new song starts and Stacy slides up and down, nipples dragging hard along his knees, his thighs, his chin. He can see Brendon's girl making the same moves, up and down, forward and back, and then she turns, dragging her ass slow and hard over Brendon's lap, grinding down in small circles. Stacy does the same to Ryan, and Ryan watches as Brendon's gaze moves down her body and back up again. 

He blinks at Ryan, eyes wide and suddenly dead fucking serious, and Stacy at least does Ryan the courtesy of pushing back hard as he thrusts up to meet her hips. He feels himself grunt, the air bouncing back off Stacy's collarbone as she twists back around, and Brendon's teeth sneak out to bite his lip, hands rising off the cushions briefly before finding their way back to safe territory. Ryan hears a growled out "fuck" from Brendon and then tastes a groan on his own tongue and then, fuck, oh my God, he's never gotten more than a decent hard-on from a lapdance before but Brendon opens his mouth and swears again and Stacy moves her knee in just the right place and Ryan comes in his pants. 

Brendon sees it happen, too. Ryan knows he sees it because neither of them has looked away once since they started this and after all they've done, after fucking their girlfriends at arm's length it shouldn't matter. It shouldn't feel like anything at all, but every single one of those times Ryan had done his best to avoid staring at anyone but Jac. No matter how many times his eyes slid over Brendon he'd never let them linger and he'd never once caught Brendon staring back. 

Not once of those eight times had it been like this, not even listening to Brendon as he cursed and moaned or knowing how he looked half-tucked in Audrey's shoulder on his final thrust. None of it had been like this, like how Brendon is looking right at Ryan as he shudders and his neck rolls back against the booth. 

"Sorry," Ryan says, the word wet in his mouth, disappearing into the quiet gap between songs like a wisp of smoke. 

"Don't worry about it," Stacy says as she stands up, sliding her top back on, and leans down to kiss the corner of Ryan's mouth. "I'll let you get yourself together," she says with a wink and wipes a smudge of lipgloss off his cheek. "Nice meeting you."

"You too," Brendon says, and still doesn't look away.


	4. Four

**Four**

Ryan/Brendon/groupie 

There are two girls at the party, not quite interchangeable. One is a little too much like Audrey, snickers sharply when she should giggle, and Ryan rests an arm on Brendon's shoulder and turns his back to her.

_ Cockblock much? _ Brendon mouths, a stage whisper breezing against Ryan's cheekbone, and Ryan stares back blankly. One girl is better than two, if he's going to do this.

The other one is an inch taller than Brendon in her stilettos, and her breasts are shoved up into a neat shelf on which Brendon is currently trying to balance his drink. "No, wait," he says, "I have excellent balance,  _ you _ just have to stand still."

"That's not really my strong suit," she says. "Believe me, I do much better when I can move around a little."

She winks and Brendon, predictably, giggles and sloshes more of his drink down her shirt. "Oh shit, here, let me, let me just get that for you," he says, licking down her throat, and she tilts her head to give him better access. After multiple Jack & Cokes Brendon is as sloppy a flirt as he is hyper, every thoughtless bit of desire shining right through his skin.

"What's your name again?" Ryan asks, and tries to sound like he's having so much fun he just forgot.

The second to last thing Jac said to him, right before she summoned her most impressive verbal acuity and told him to fuck off and die, was that he was capable of watching a girl stab herself in the heart while still looking like he couldn't decide what to order at Starbucks. She should have quit while she was ahead. That was the hardest to shake, even after a week of hiding in his bunk, staring up at the ceiling and wondering why he'd ever been so fucking stupid as to think she was any different.

Eventually Brendon dragged him out to the lounge and buried him alive under stupid chick flicks and hot chocolate, like he was following some fucking advice he'd read in Cosmogirl. "Are we still sad?" Brendon asked, head on Ryan's shoulder and feet tucked under his thighs.

Brendon hadn't been sad at all, not that Ryan could tell. By the time he'd goaded Audrey into breaking up with him, unable or uninterested in keeping his mouth shut about every idiotic thing available for him to do on a tour surrounded by thousands of girls, Brendon had mostly been relieved. "Who's ready to be single again?" he crowed, taking a running leap off a stage during soundcheck like he was fucking unbreakable, and then Ryan had to listen to Jac bitching once more about how his best friend was an asshole.

His arm slips off Brendon's back and the girl says, "I'm Alex." He wishes he'd known that before, or that she at least went by Lex or Alexi or something. Not that he's planning to scream out her name, but by the third time someone joked that Ryan and Jac sounded like a couple of fags, he was long over the whole girls with boy names thing.

"Ryan," he says. Maybe she'll think he's shy.

She rolls her eyes, dark lashes sweeping in an arc. "Oh, I know." She raises one perfect brow. "Ryan the ringleader," she says, and he doesn't have any idea what that's supposed to mean, but he says, "Well, everyone knows Brendon's name," and slips an arm along his waist. Brendon snorts a laugh, staring into his cup as he swallows what's left of his drink, and Alex stares steadily at Ryan, head cocked slightly. She's appraising their value, assessing his offer.

The first time after a show that a groupie stuck her tongue in his mouth and shoved her hand into his boxers, Ryan had been surprised. (Not  _ surprised _ like Brendon had been, Brendon who had bounded back to the van with a dull glow and a dizzy, "You  _ guys _ , this is exactly the kind of trouble my parents thought I would get into in a rock band, and it's about fucking time I proved them right," and "Fuck, I don't know, I mostly just stood there," and "It's not like I'm going to ask her to prom, Ryan, Jesus, get that stick out of your ass.")

Ryan had just watched Almost Famous too many times, is all, and he had this stupid fucking idea that -- whatever, he'd seen girls at shows with too much makeup and barely any clothes rub up against burly security guys like it was going to get them somewhere, but he hadn't realized it actually worked like that, that they'd do anything you want and never even expect to be a part of anything real.

But there is always still some calculation, for groupies or for girlfriends. Are you a big enough band? Are you the guy who stands in the back of the pictures? Are you worth a fuck or just a quick handjob? Anything is better than no good story to take back to her friends, but nothing is for sure. Two might not be better than one.

Alex puts her hand over Ryan's where it curves around Brendon's hip. "Do you guys have a minibar?"

"We do, it's glorious," Brendon says. "Want to see?"

Ryan had spent one hotel night with Spencer, in the wake of Jac, and Spencer had done nothing but sigh and ask Ryan if he was sure he didn't want to talk. Or he'd start sentences about his new girlfriend and then stop because apparently Ryan might cry at the thought of anyone being less than miserable. It made him long for Brendon's smothering. Anyway they're used to sharing a room now.

Brendon follows Ryan to the elevators, pulling Alex along behind him, and if it occurs to him that three's a crowd he doesn't let on. "Hotel party," Brendon says, grinning wide as he hits the button for their floor.

In the room, safely delivered to intermission, Alex heads for the bathroom and Brendon flops on one bed. Ryan mixes them weak drinks while Brendon fucks with the cord connecting his iPod to the clock radio, and when Alex comes back the acidic smell of hairspray follows her. She dances a little, swaying to the music, and Brendon jumps up to join her.

Ryan leans against the dresser and watches as she relaxes into it, recalibrating her performance for an audience of two. Even Brendon's show is smaller, more controlled, like he's actually concentrating on being seductive, now that it's all but a sure thing. He pulls her close, thrusting up softly, dirty dancing in a teen movie, and she throws back her head, long dark hair flowing like they're underwater. Brendon seems so content, so happily in love with the moment, that Ryan almost swallows his plan and walks out the door. This isn't, it's not about just getting what he wants, what he's wondered. It's about offering an answer, a hint of one, an idea.

Then Alex nods over her shoulder. "Come here," she says to Ryan, and Brendon closes his eyes against her neck and holds her tighter. So Ryan goes and stands behind Alex, letting her do the work to move them closer until the song ends and he can step away. Brendon blinks and looks to where Ryan had been standing before, eyes flicking back and forth like he'll find a trail of bread crumbs.

The music shifts, faster now, more intent. This is Brendon's make-out mix, labeled accordingly in his playlists, and Ryan's fucked to it so many times he could practically time his orgasm to its progression. He raises his eyebrows to remind Alex whose turn it is.

She shrugs and says, "Want to play strip poker? Though I guess you guys would have an unfair advantage, being from Vegas and all." She doesn't look like she expects to lose.

Brendon fumbles off his shirt, smirking as his head reappears, hair pushed up in the back. "Or we could just strip. Look, it's your turn!"

Alex laughs, light and fake, and won't even rest a finger on the hem of her blouse until Ryan sighs and tugs his own off.

"I never win anyway," he says, and Brendon nods and says, "That's true, Ryan sucks at poker, you'd think with his dad working at a casino he'd at least manage to stay in the game, but really he's got the worst fucking poker face I've ever seen. It's like he never knows when to just stop --"

Ryan says her name, as soft and as sweet as he can in the sudden silence, Brendon's jaw so slack it could cast shadows, and she reaches for Brendon's belt. 

"-- playing," Brendon finishes lamely as she slides her hand inside his slacks. Ryan can see the bulge of her fingers as she strokes him, and Brendon's eyes flutter shut for a second before flying wide open again. "Ryan," he says, hoarse.

"Yeah," Ryan answers, and he sounds just as bad off already.

Alex says, "I'm going to suck both your cocks at the same time." She smiles, preemptively proud, and flicks her hair back over her bare shoulder. "But you have to at least take off your own pants and stand a little closer together, okay?"

Brendon hisses a tight breath in but he doesn't say no, he doesn't say stop. He doesn't ask what they're doing. Ryan takes five steps, kicking off his shoes and unzipping as he goes, and by the time he's there Brendon has done the same and Alex is down to her bra and underwear. She kneels neatly, a beauty queen's dignity in her straight spine. She leaves her heels on, though, like a porn star.

He and Brendon are standing close to each other, but not touching, not until her hot breath skates over Brendon's dick and he flinches, flailing an errant knee into Ryan's leg. Alex looks up then. "I get to use my hands," she says, "but not you." Brendon shakes his head in agreement and Ryan holds his palms up, the picture of innocence. But when she starts in earnest, tongue strong and slick along the side of his cock, he catches himself reaching out and ends up with one folded arm perched on Brendon's shoulder, almost all his weight on the side closest to Brendon's hip.

Brendon's skin is hot, already damp with sweat, and Ryan feels a sympathetic flush on the back of his neck. She bobs down and back again on Brendon, then on Ryan, then back again, and every time she switches she draws them a little nearer, until Brendon's whole side is pressed to his. No matter who she's got her mouth on, it looks almost the same from up there except how when she sucks Brendon's cock, Ryan's twitches on its own, dark and slick with spit against his stomach before she grabs it again for his turn.

The ragged edges of Brendon's nails press hard into Ryan's collarbone now, their chests turned inward even as their hips stay angled out, their legs arranged in a half-circle around Alex on the floor as she speeds up, always keeping her hand on one of them while her lips are on the other. She doesn't hold onto them anywhere else, her right arm braced the floor for balance, and her sheer precision, her efficiency, amazes Ryan.

He wonders how many cocks you have to suck to be this good at it, to know just where to add pressure, just when to pull back. He probably wouldn't be any good at it, if he were the one on his knees, if it was his mouth on Brendon's cock, his hand cupping the curve of Brendon's ass to hold him even nearer as he swallowed and tilted his chin back, letting Brendon touch his cheek, letting Brendon fuck his mouth however he wanted, as hard as he could.

"Oh fuck," Brendon says, and Ryan looks down to see what Alex is doing now but it's the same, just more of the same mind-fucking-blowing blowjob of the century. When he raises his eyes again Brendon's staring right at him, balanced on a shaky ledge somewhere between hysteria and self-hatred and no, no, they aren't here for that, that's not what they're doing. Brendon's chin is quivering like he might cry and he says Ryan's name, rough and confused.

"Yeah," Ryan says, squeezing the back of Brendon's neck, and then Alex pulls off and wraps her hand around them, around both their cocks, together, and oh fuck, the sticky smooth skin of Brendon's dick and his own as they slide together forces a dark whine from his throat.

Brendon starts talking then, like he always does when he finally stops thinking about whether he should be having sex and just loses himself to it. "That feels so fucking good," he says, "fuck, yeah, yeah, your hand and -- Ryan, Jesus, this is," and Ryan says, "Yeah, yeah, it is," and then Alex licks over the slit of his cock, her tongue swirling from his to Brendon's and, "Fucking Christ," Brendon says, "she's really going to --" and then she does, somehow, her lips sliding over both heads at once, and she doesn't take them in deeply but it doesn't fucking matter, she's got both their cocks in her mouth and Ryan can feel, fuck, he can fucking feel the head of his dick rubbing against Brendon's, he can feel them leaking together as she pulls away before doing it again, a slightly different angle, her hand squeezing them tight, her thumb sweeping along the undersides as she swallows down just a bit, just a fraction, just enough that Ryan loses it fast, gasping as he comes.

He'd fall over as he slides out of her mouth except Brendon holds on, his fingers clamped brutally around Ryan's shoulder. Ryan watches as Alex takes Brendon in deep, her cheeks hollowed out, and then Brendon's lips are touching his ear and he says, "I can feel your fucking come on my dick, Ryan, it's --" and Ryan says, "Brendon," but it's more breath than word, and Brendon's so close, Ryan can tell, he's biting his lip and he's stopped talking and Ryan says, "Yeah, come on," and Brendon's entire body shivers and then his hand is on Ryan's jaw and his tongue is in Ryan's mouth and they're, fuck, they're  _ kissing _ , Brendon's kissing him, hungry and desperate and Ryan closes his eyes and Brendon's coming, Ryan can feel his back tense and let go again and, oh fuck.

Brendon groans as his teeth close on Ryan's lip, so demanding, and Ryan's so fucking desperate for more he might cry, he can feel every muscle in his body and maybe Brendon's too, and this is, this is nothing like he thought it would be, and Brendon pants against his mouth and says his name again, a little lost again, and Ryan says, "I'm right here," and kisses Brendon back.


	5. Five

**Fi** **ve**

Ryan/Brendon/Brittany

Brendon's fingers tap a strange pattern on the steering wheel. It's not wholly unfamiliar, some song Ryan's heard before but never quite like this. A burst of singing breaks through Brendon's pursed lips, bitten back as soon as it escapes, but when Ryan smiles at the sound, Brendon lets loose with words, a twisted-up take on "Eleanor Rigby" Ryan wants to hear with the whole band. 

Maybe this wasn't as awful an idea as Ryan had thought. Anyway they could still stop. It's early. No one's naked or close to it. Ryan's determined not to make this worse, not again, not after the freak-out and the month (years, it felt like, generations of unease) of trying so hard to make every touch seem innocent without ever being too distant or cold. There wasn't going to be any punishment for Brendon drawing a line and staying safely on his side. Brendon wasn't the one who'd done anything wrong. Brendon wasn't the one who'd pushed too far. If anyone should have been cut off, it was Ryan, but Brendon hadn't done that, hadn't frozen him out or given him the silent treatment or any of the far, far worse he deserved. 

Before Ryan had caught his breath, before Alex had stood up, Brendon had pulled away, flailing his arms weakly, and maybe to someone who hadn't known Brendon as long his sudden and intense need to go clean up would have sounded believable. "Okay," Ryan said, and Alex rose to her feet as the bathroom door clicked shut. 

"Hmm," she murmured, and it wasn't a condemnation but maybe it wasn't necessary to have known Brendon for years, maybe all it took was having had his dick and another guy's in your mouth at the same time to realize something had gotten fucked up. They didn't owe her any explanation, and Ryan was ready to say just that when she tilted his chin towards her with one long fingernail, kissing him deep and wet and salty and, oh shit, she was tonguing Brendon's come into his mouth, and when Ryan gasped he felt one smooth, viscous stream slide down his throat. 

She smirked against his lips, squeezing his wrist until the bones creaked against each other. "Thought you might like that," she said, and Ryan wasn't sure whether to slap her or fuck her, but Brendon -- Brendon was locked in the bathroom and Ryan had to fix this, had to at least try to. He had to not make it worse.

"Thank you," he said, and bent down to retrieve her shirt. She scoffed a little, more disappointment than disbelief, and put her clothes back on.

When she was gone, he knocked on the bathroom door, calling Brendon's name softly. "She left," he said. "It's just us." 

There was no answer from the other side, no noise, no shower running or toilet flushing or puking or crying or anything at all. It was if Brendon had gone in there and disappeared into himself. Ryan knew what that was like, to think a thin door and squeezed shut eyes could protect you from reality. Finally he thought to try the handle, and it turned. Brendon never had been very good at hiding.

He was sitting on the ledge of the tub, knees pressed together, hands folded in his lap. He stared blankly at the mirror, his neck, chin and face peeking back over the counter opposite him. There was a red scratch rising on his shoulder that made Ryan glance down at his own nails, his right hand left long since he'd started playing more acoustic on the bus. 

"Brendon," he said, and Brendon's mouth twitched.

"Yeah, sorry," Brendon said. He didn't look at Ryan, though. He didn't seem to be looking at anything at all. His voice was flat and resigned, and his skin was pale and blotchy.

Ryan stepped closer and the weighted door fell shut behind him. The fluorescent hum echoed against the tile like a screaming swarm of bees. Brendon blinked, slow and sad, and Ryan sat down next to him. It wasn't a huge bathtub but there was room to leave, if he wanted, between their bare bodies. He didn't, even when he felt Brendon's arms tense at the contact. 

They sat in silence for a while, that awful kind of interminable wait that could have lasted a minute or an hour, the kind that never had good news on the other end, would always end in "we're sorry but" or "the hospital called" or "don't ever speak to me again." This was the worst fucking idea he'd ever had, and Ryan felt the inevitability of its collapse in weird places: the edge of his kneecap (the one not touching Brendon's leg), the underside of his rib cage (but only on the left), the backs of both ankles, Achilles' heels taut and ready to snap. 

He heard Brendon try to speak several times, a few raspy inhalations and the gurgling of a cleared throat that only reminded Ryan of Alex's kiss and the fact that he could still taste Brendon far back on the roof of his mouth. Finally Brendon breathed in and swallowed and licked his lips and said, "Ryan," and it wasn't flat, it wasn't resigned, it was two broken, bruised syllables. 

It was the voice of a man condemned, a haunted house, and Ryan had been called an asshole before, had been told he was worse, that he was worthless and a waste of space and so fucking selfish he wasn't fit to deprive the world of oxygen other people could be using to say something worth hearing. But he'd never felt the truth of those judgments before, had never agreed so wholeheartedly. 

"I can't," Brendon said, "I'm sorry," and Ryan said, "I know, I know," and put his arm around Brendon's shoulders as gently as he could. He had thought there might be more,  _ my family, Ryan, I can't _ , but there wasn't, or he couldn't, he just apologized again and Ryan said, "It's okay," though it obviously wasn't. Then Brendon stood up and went back into the room. The door slammed shut after him and by the time Ryan had used the complimentary mouthwash and stared dully at his reflection for a while, Brendon was in one bed with his pajamas on and the blankets pulled up to his ears, his back to the world.

They've been home almost a week now, five days of breathing room that should have been welcome, a reprieve from the routine of acting like nothing had changed, that nothing had happened. Ryan has spent a lot of time sleeping and driving aimlessly around rough roads on the outskirts of the suburbs. He doesn't want to be in his tiny old room or sitting in front of the TV listening to his dad wheeze every time he stands up and walks to the fridge. 

Going over to Spencer's means risking another variation on the inquisitions Ryan has been dodging all month. It was possible to calculate the precise amount of physical interaction Brendon seemed to need and accept to continue their mutual denial, but things were still  _ different _ and Spencer still wasn't stupid. The first time they had roomed together again, Spencer had snapped, short and annoyed and maybe scared, "You don't have to pretend to be okay around me." Ryan hadn't known how to say something about Brendon without sounding pathetic and creepy and like a stupid kid with a broken heart, so he hadn't said anything at all.

Since getting back to Vegas, he's seen Spencer three times, twice over subs, where they never talk about anything serious. He hung out one time with other kids he knew but couldn't think of anything to say about their last tour and Brent or Jac or Brendon that didn't make him sound like a jackass, and then not talking at all made him look like one anyway, an aloof jerk who thought he was too cool for old friends who hadn't thought he was that special to start off with. 

Then Brendon called, and because Ryan wasn't going to avoid Brendon or his invitations to go buy luggage it turned out he wasn't going to say no to anything Brendon asked for at all. They wandered through Fashion Show Mall and Brendon talked about what he'd been doing since they were home, a dumb family picnic and sleeping till three every day and how nice it was hanging out with Brittany again, how easy it was, how it wasn't weird at all that they'd had sex last year, how she just understood him. 

"She totally wanted to hear all about Audrey and what happened," Brendon said, and Ryan ran his palm over the soft leather stomach of a bag and swallowed hard. He couldn't figure out what to say to his oldest friend in the world and Brendon was swapping locker room stories with his ex-whatever? A big hand closed in a fist around his lungs.

"You told her?" he managed, while Brendon was distracted by the shiny patent gloss on a shoulder strap, and Brendon's head snapped up.

"No," he said, "no, I wouldn't," and that was the closest they'd come in a month to talking about it, to acknowledging there might have been something to talk about. "I mean," Brendon said, and bounced on his toes like he would before going onstage, "I just, she kept asking me about all sorts of things, Audrey things and like, tour things, and sex things, and I told her how, you know, sometimes we would -- in the same room, you know."

Ryan knew. He knew Brittany was the first girl Brendon had made come, and only then because she'd called him an idiot, grabbed his hand and put his fingers in the right place. He knew somehow Brendon had managed to stop her from thinking that meant they were dating, which was a feat they'd all been impressed by. 

"And once I told her that, she couldn't stop talking about it, dude, it was crazy." Brendon looked down at his hands and then back up, a careful, casual smirk in place. "I think she wants to fool around again? But, like, with someone watching." 

"Watching," Ryan said. He couldn't, he wouldn't put those kind of words in Brendon's mouth. 

"You like Brittany, right?"

"Sure," he said, weak, like a scared, short twelve-year-old who had no idea how to stand up for himself. That was a shitty metaphor, though, because what he thought Brendon was getting at was as much a welcome tease as a threat. 

Anyway it was true. He liked Brittany, liked her better than lots of girls they knew. He liked her, if not as one of his own friends then one of Brendon's, one who hadn't started treating him any different because they were in a famous band and had Pete Wentz's phone number. 

"And, come on," Brendon said, "it's not anything you haven't seen before, right?"

That was right, that was accurate and true. Ryan had watched Brendon fuck Audrey dozens of times, had seen him come in his jeans with a stripper grinding on his lap, had stood there with Brendon's sweat-slick shoulder under his hand as they fucked a girl's mouth together. And apparently all that was fine as long as they didn't get carried away, as long as their respective mouths stayed on the safe side of the line in Brendon's head that divided  _ fucked up _ from  _ totally fucking unacceptable _ .

"So maybe tomorrow?" Brendon asked, and Ryan still had no idea who was supposed to watch what, but anything Brendon asked, anything Brendon wanted, Ryan would say yes to. That was part of his penance, and if even if he had known it was a trick or some special torture cooked up in revenge, he'd say yes. He deserved to bear the brunt of Brendon's worst ideas for a change. So he nodded and Brendon grinned. He actually looked a little relieved, and he waved across a mountain of bags. "Should I get the whole set?" he asked, suddenly sounding shy, and Ryan said yes.

Brendon called in the morning and said Brittany had told him to pick Ryan up at seven, so at five till he was sitting on his front steps like a little kid. The first few minutes in the car were fine, were meaningless chatter and jokes and they hadn't spent these two years living in each other's pockets without learning how to make conversation. But now Brendon is singing and smiling and acting like that magic line is so obvious of course they'll pull up short just in time to avoid a repeat crash and burn. Ryan doesn't know, isn't convinced that what Brendon needs is someone else agreeing with him. 

At a stop light, Brendon grips the gearshift, squeezing it tight before letting go. He's acting calm but he smells like pre-show nerves, a light musky sweat, mixed with the post-performance shower, shampoo and soap clinging to his skin. Ryan's spent five weeks trying to forget how that all tastes. He puts his hand over Brendon's anyway, lays it on top like a blanket and says, "We don't have to do this," even though they do, he's been telling himself all day they clearly have to in some way or they wouldn't keep finding themselves here, almost all alone, almost knowing what they're doing. 

Brendon doesn't flinch and doesn't pull away, not even when he puts on the gas, his dad's Toyota sliding into the intersection, closer to Brittany's apartment, where her roommate is never home, where there aren't any parents or childhood friends or brand-new bandmates. 

"I was out late last night," Brendon says, and Ryan's usually grateful for Brendon being so easily distracted from seriousness. Ryan usually loves his own overactive imagination but at times like this it's a curse, it's a million reasons and faces and bodies Brendon could have sought refuge in instead of him, and that -- that would be worse than any other mistake they could make together. "Brittany and I had dinner," Brendon says, "and we just started talking, about, like, everything."

Ryan doesn't ask for clarification, doesn't want to know, if he's being completely honest, what Brendon's version of the whole thing sounds like, what he remembers, what parts he's pretending didn't matter. Ryan can't close his eyes and not see Brendon's mouth, open, panting before he kissed Ryan, can't put on headphones and not hear Brendon's desperate directions, his mouth spilling out every filthy fucking word he'd spent years keeping inside.

Brendon says, "So I got home at two, maybe two-thirty, right?"

Ryan nods because he still doesn't trust himself not to be an asshole about this, about Brendon and what he wants or doesn't want or doesn't know how to want in a way he won't hate himself for it after. 

"And I wake up this morning, go down for breakfast, and my mom -- I mean, Jesus, Ryan. You'd think I was taking pictures of my dick and putting them on the internet or something." 

Brendon looks away from the road, at Ryan, and cracks a too-wide smile. Ryan blinks and tries to laugh, but it's not really funny and they both know it. 

"And Brittany's great," Brendon says, and Ryan shakes his head more firmly now in agreement. "She's this completely awesome girl, and they hate when I spend time with her, like because she's not LDS and isn't trying to drag me back into some life I don't want anymore, she's not worth it. Everything I do, they think it's just me trying to hurt them. And you know -- maybe, whatever, maybe I fucking am, you know? Their rules are ridiculous, and I'm not that fucking person any more and they just can't stand to admit it. But they don't see any difference between me being with someone like Brittany and having, like, a line of girls come blow me after a show. And there's a difference, right?"

Ryan says, "Yeah, Brendon, there's a big fucking difference." 

"I know, right, I know. But, like, how the hell am I supposed to figure out how not to be a total asshole about sex when being in that house makes me feel like I don't fucking know anything. They're living in this world where none of this is even funny as, like, a joke. I didn't want to be -- I just didn't want to make it worse." 

Brendon sighs and stares at Ryan for a long minute, the road empty as they slide through a new development with sharp-edged curbs, perfectly poured concrete no kid has even skated down yet. 

"No one I bring home is going to be what they want, Ryan. It just won't ever be okay."

Ryan thinks,  _ my family, Ryan, I can't _ . He thinks,  _ I'm right here _ . He tries to breathe around the clench in his stomach, to swallow through the collapsed pressure in his chest. He thinks, wildly,  _ I have no fucking idea what we're doing, but please don't ask me to stop. _ He stares down at his hand still draped over Brendon's, and he makes himself squeeze it, watching his fingers wrap tightly around Brendon's.

Brendon says, "So fuck them, you know? Fuck that noise." He grins for real then, huge and happy, light like he can breathe just fine, like he can swallow and feel his knees and his toes and all of it's okay, all of it works. 

"Yeah," Ryan says, "fuck it." He rolls down the window to feel the breeze on his face and Brendon hums in harmony over the stereo.

When they get there, Ryan remembers how Brittany is great, she's amazing, she's either psychic or an even better friend than he'd realized or has some selfish motivation of her own for this plan. Ryan's doesn't even care why she's doing this. He's completely happy to watch Brendon fuck her, if that's what she wants, if that's what she tells him to do, or he guesses he could fuck her himself, whatever she wants. It gets him back in the room with Brendon instead of marooned on his own lonely, miserable planet. It gets Brendon thinking how it shouldn't matter what his fucking parents want him to be. 

"You first," she says to Ryan instead of hello, and flips her brown bangs out of her eyes. She pulls him by the hand through the apartment, turning to kiss him in the doorway to her bedroom. 

He looks at Brendon and all he gets is a shrug and, "You heard the woman." It isn't the joke Ryan was expecting. He'd figured on something about short straws or an elaborate game of rock, paper, scissors. Years now of spending nearly every day with this kid who changed everything and Ryan's been pretty confident he knows everything a person can about Brendon Urie -- what he wants, what he thinks. How he fucks. What he tastes like. But maybe Ryan's been fooling himself. 

He's not even sure suddenly what Brendon was trying to tell him in the car, what it really  _ means _ . No fucking way is Ryan the person to teach Brendon how not to be asshole about sex when all Ryan can think is that these mistakes they make together are the best kind of trainwreck. His life's not even the one that will really get destroyed if they can't stop.

Brendon smiles then, just a tiny bit, and nods like he does when Ryan's been feeling less like performing than usual. It's his version of a pep talk and so Ryan takes it as one, crowds Brittany against the wall and kisses his way down from her mouth to her neck, his fingers trailing down her arms and back up again, cupping her breasts as he licks down the open V of her shirt. 

This is just like a show, just like any other time he's gone out in front of a crowd and tried to pretend they can't see through his words and his makeup. It's a show for Brendon, who already knows what Ryan is underneath all that. This whole  _ thing _ is for Brendon.

Ryan unbuttons Brittany's blouse, licking between each gap as the fabric gives way and focusing on what Brendon can see, what Brendon is watching. What it would be like if Brendon was the one pressed against the wall, if it was his chest under Ryan's lips. At the very least he wants Brendon to think the same thing, to put himself in Brittany's place, to yearn for Ryan's mouth on his stomach and Ryan's fingers pulling down his zipper. Brittany gasps, maybe surprised, maybe pleased that he's sliding to his knees already. 

When he looks up, tugging her pants off, Brendon is leaning against the wall beside them, arms crossed on his chest, and he's staring down at Ryan with his mouth open, his cheeks flushed. Ryan leans forward and presses the bridge of his nose to her underwear, the fabric already a little wet even before he begins licking her through it. 

Ryan doesn't mind going down on girls because they pretty much always seem to genuinely be enjoying it. Oh, they'll try at first to keep it together, to act cool and arch their backs and moan all sexy. But then pretty fast they just give in and get really fucking needy, pushing their hips where they want to be licked, spreading their legs wide if they want your fingers too. He's pretty sure girls don't bother faking this part, because a guy doesn't usually have to be asked twice to get right to the fucking. 

Brittany pushes her underwear down, her shoulders still flat on the wall as she tilts her thighs up, towards him. "I was getting there," he says, but he doesn't really give a shit who takes whose clothes off if eventually they all end up naked. 

"You're a tease, Ryan Ross," she says lightly, and swallows the last S of his name when he pulls her clit between his teeth, sucking hard. 

"That is so true," Brendon says, and turns Brittany's cheek towards him to plant a light, breezy kiss on her lips, and Ryan thinks,  _ I'll show him a tease _ and counts off twelve slow measures with smooth, deep licks, then shallow, then deep, until Brittany makes some kind of squeaking noise and scrabbles one bare foot onto Ryan's shoulder, heel sliding down his back. Her other leg is shaking, her stomach muscles quivering, and Ryan pushes two fingers in at once.

"Oh God, your -- Brendon, his  _ hands _ ," she sighs, and Brendon says, "I know," as if he's ever felt them like this. Like he's imagined it, maybe. Ryan speeds up, wanting to make her come with Brendon's tongue in her mouth and his in her cunt, one of her hands in his hair and one holding onto Brendon so she can stay standing. The whole thing -- it's so completely un-fucking-believable that Ryan is pretty sure no one, not even Spencer, would believe him if later he said, hey, guess what Brendon and I did today?

They didn't bother getting drunk, or having dinner, or acting like this night was going to be anything other than lots of sex with one more person around than typically required to get the job done. They just showed up and got right down to it, and maybe that's what they've needed, that's what he and Brendon have been doing wrong. They've been acting like it's special, like it's cool, like it's a fucking awesome secret when all along they could have just walked out of rooms and shrugged and said,  _ Yeah, we'll be back in a while, we have some fucking to do now. _ Maybe then it wouldn't matter so much who was actually doing the fucking.

Brittany's close -- she tells them that, barking it out in a high whine, she's close, she's  _ so close _ \-- and Ryan can hear Brendon kiss her, to shut her up or help out somehow, Ryan's not sure, but either way it makes it easier to focus on finding the spot that makes her whole body spasm, there it is, a push with one finger and a flick of his tongue at the same time and a half-dozen repetitions later she pulls away from Brendon's mouth and groans low, satisfied, a smoky laugh punctuating the wet slide as Ryan pulls back. Her leg slips off his back and she pokes at Ryan's elbow with her toes, nudging him up.

They're all standing very close together, Brittany bare below the waist, her shirt falling off her shoulders. He and Brendon are still wearing all their clothes but their shoes are bumping up against each other, Brendon's arm now around Brittany's lower back, keeping her upright. She reaches a hand out and cups Ryan's cock through his pants, and Ryan jumps a bit. He just wasn't expecting that move so fast and yeah, he's hard, he's been going down on her for God knows how long and there's no good way or reason to stay unaffected by sex even if it was kind of his second-choice scenario. Still he startles at her touch and then feels Brendon steady him, Brendon's hand on his forearm as Brittany rubs his dick, flicks the button open so she can squeeze and pull him until he's, yeah, he's totally hard now, now he remembers he'd like to get something out of this too. They're all watching Brittany's hand on his cock and Ryan would offer some kind of explanation if he had any idea what they were doing. 

"Brendon wants to watch you fuck me," Brittany says, and Ryan's almost entirely certain that's not true, that it's what  _ she _ wants for whatever reason, that this has been her plan all along.

"I --" Brendon starts, like he's going to clear that up himself, but Brittany kisses Brendon as she jerks Ryan slow and steady and when she pulls back all Ryan can think to say is, "Okay." She flashes a smile, fast and pleased, and strips what's left of her shirt off, dropping it on the floor before climbing onto the bed. She's on all fours, looking back over her shoulder at them, and Ryan fumbles to get himself naked.

He's kicking off his underwear and raising his eyebrows at Brendon, because it's not really cool for only one person to be fully clothed, when Brittany says, "How do you want him to do it, Brendon?"

Brendon laughs a little, like he might make a joke, and Ryan reaches out and grabs him by the shirt, staring seriously because someone has to teach Brendon the right and wrong times to make a joke in the fucking bedroom, and apparently that's Ryan's job. "How do you want her," he says, and Brendon swallows hard and says, "Like that, on, up on her knees." 

"Take off your clothes," Ryan says, and Brendon does, no kidding around, no smart-ass remarks. He strips and stands with his hands by his sides until Brittany says, "Brendon, come over here," and arranges him so he's sitting against the headboard, legs crossed, fingers steepled over his dick. He stares straight ahead, blinking a little wide, and watches as Ryan stands at the foot of the bed and rolls on a condom, knees pressed into the edge of the mattress.

"Do you want --" Ryan waits until Brendon understands it's his call. "Should I stand or --" He gestures to the bed, to the square of mattress behind Brittany. 

"Uh," Brendon says. "Bed." 

Ryan positions himself and says, "Okay," which Brittany must take as a question and not a warning, because she says, "Yes, come on," and so he does. Depending on how high Brittany bends her back, how much she straightens her arms, he can't see all of Brendon, who's slipping down the pillows a little more each time Ryan catches a glimpse, his legs unfolded and his dick lying hard and a little wet against his stomach. 

Ryan's not sure if Brittany even cares about coming again or if she's just waiting for some reaction out of Brendon, some call to action. Ryan has figured out that she'll say what she wants when she's ready, so he doesn't bother taking it all that slow, or touching her all that much, just holds her hips and snaps in and out. He closes his eyes once, trying to lose himself in it, to just feel like he's fucking some girl, any girl, like the girl he picked up in London two weeks ago because he thought at least maybe that would make him feel better. This girl, Brittany, she's wet and tight and he'll come soon enough if he doesn't overthink it too much, doesn't remember how the girl in London wanted to play their CD while he fucked her. He couldn't do it, he wouldn't fuck with Brendon's voice in his ears if they weren't in the same room still. 

Still he's getting closer now, he's focused, and this sex, right here, this is good sex, she's thrusting back at him and he can do this, he's getting there when he hears Brendon say, "fuck," high and little like he's trying to be quiet but that's not working any better than Ryan's imaginary world laid over this very specific and personal and intimate thing they're doing. 

He opens his eyes and Brendon's staring right at him, now lying all the way down on the mattress next to them, hand gripping his dick tight, trying to hold himself back. Ryan slams in as deep as he can and Brittany actually slips a little on the sheets, almost loses her balance. 

Brendon licks his lips and says, "He's fucking you so hard, Brit," but he never looks away from Ryan. "You like it rough, don't you, you always wanted me to fuck you harder." He squeezes his cock again and swallows. "Tell him you want it harder, come on, come on Brit, yeah, put your arms down and just let him hold you up and fuck you as hard as he can, come on, tell him." 

She doesn't ask for anything but she does slump face-first into the pillows, arms under her head, and when Ryan uses the change in position to get in a little deeper she moans, yells really, and, fuck, now he  _ knows _ she wants another go, now he has to really fuck her as hard as he can, goddamn Brendon and his ideas and his filthy fucking mouth, still lying there not jerking off, just whispering the dirtiest shit he can think of, narrating the whole thing like a fucking game: "Come on, Brit, he's fucking you so hard, come on, come on and use your own hand and help him out, fuck, Brit, want you to scream when you come, we want to hear you scream."

Finally Brendon slides the hand not trying to tame his hard-on down between Brittany's body and the sheets. Ryan knocks her knees farther apart until she's pressed to the bed, held between Brendon's fingers and Ryan's cock as he juts up again and again and then she's coming. She actually  _ is _ fucking screaming, not their names, not Jesus or God or anyone else, no real words at all, just a long broken cry and Brendon's triumphant laugh layered under it, and Ryan says, "Fuck, fuck," and comes, too.

He lowers himself slowly onto her back, waiting for his brain to clear long enough that he can figure out what the fuck they're supposed to do next. He can see Brendon a little out of his peripheral vision, one hand still holding his cock tight, his chest rising and falling like he's been fucking someone as hard as Ryan was. Brittany is boneless and soft and her skin smells like oranges, maybe, or lemons, something citrusy and sweet. Ryan licks her shoulderblade but it just tastes like skin.

"Hey," she says, out of the corner of her mouth, puffs of air blowing into the pillowcase. "Hey Brendon." 

"Yeah, still here." He sounds lust-stupid but with an undercurrent of eagerness. 

Brittany raises her head a notch, enough that Ryan scoots back and slides halfway down and off until he's lying at her side, her body splayed between him and Brendon. She pulls his leg back over her hip and he feels really naked, really open. "Do you want to fuck?" she asks, slowly, non-specfically, and Brendon's breath hitches in his lungs. 

Ryan can suddenly feel his heart pounding, a noisy thud like a metronome against Brittany's back, a cacophony of possibility. Almost too many options just between the three of them for how that could play out, and Ryan hadn't gotten that far, not even in his head, not anywhere close to it because what was the point in imagining worlds that were never going to be built, that defied physics and reason and here Brittany is, here she is like it's just that easy. Like it was just that no one had bothered to ask. 

"Or," she says, and Ryan almost claps a hand over her mouth because they weren't done, Brendon hadn't answered. Maybe he was ready, maybe he was almost there. "Or we can just take care of you," she finishes, and Brendon still doesn't answer, barely seems to even breathe. Ryan can't see his face from where he is, only his chest, an elbow, his thighs and his dick, his dick that is so flushed and leaking and the hand that still holds it is shaking. 

Ryan pushes himself up with one hand on the mattress between Brittany and Brendon, one on the other side of her body. They have to take care of this, they can't make him say it, he's not ready. Maybe, almost, but not yet. Ryan pushes down the bed a bit and Brittany rolls onto her side, staring now at them both. "We'll do it," Ryan says, and barely recognizes his own voice, how it's so sure, so rough. Brendon's eyes get even wider but he doesn't say no, not at all, he doesn't shake his head or stare with squinted eyes like he will when he's trying to be kind or polite but would rather stab himself than sit through another autograph signing. 

Ryan is half-lying down, knees tucked under him, and he puts one hand on Brendon's knee. Brendon exhales, shaky, sounding scared, and fuck, fuck, there's no contest here for being cool, it's not going to help balance anything out or make Brendon feel any better if he thinks he's the only one who's taking a flying leap. Ryan bites his lip and looks to Brittany and says, "Will you tell me how?"

Brendon raises his head at that. "Wait, you've never --" and Ryan shrugs. He's never. He's never really gotten this far. He's wanted to, but he hasn't. He hasn't been sure he wanted to, not like this, not like how he would do anything Brendon wanted if Brendon knew he wanted it, if he knew and could say and not hate himself every second of the way. He doesn't even have to say, not right now, he just has to let Ryan do this for him.

Brittany almost looks surprised, but there's a slow, warm smile beneath it as she wraps a hand around Brendon's cock. Brendon gasps, body jumping, and Ryan pins him to the bed and licks his way from Brendon's navel to his balls, just like Brittany says to, slow and steady, breathing in and out and keeping his eyes open the whole time. He pushes his nose against Brittany's hand, nudging her fingers open so he can dip his tongue between. 

Brendon whimpers, just a wordless noise at first, but then he says, shakily, "Stop," and Ryan squeezes his eyes tight and does not, he absolutely does not scream in frustration. Brittany takes her hand away entirely and Ryan looks up just as Brendon smiles down, wicked and hot, saying, "Stop being such a fucking tease, Ross," and Ryan swallows as much of Brendon's cock down as he can at once, pulling off again and pinching Brendon's thigh hard once in retaliation. Brendon laughs, short and sharp, and Ryan laughs back because what the fuck, what the fuck are they even doing, why have they spent one minute acting like this isn't what they wanted all along. 

Brittany elbows Ryan, a hot poke in the arm and he bats her away with an annoyed flail. "Yeah, I am, I am," he says, and she says, "Use your own hand then, rock star," so he does, his hand and his mouth on Brendon's cock, his other fingers splayed across Brendon's leg until Brendon's hands push into his hair. He pulls off long enough to say, "Oh, this is what shuts you up?" and when he goes down again, Brendon thrusts up hard. 

"Can't believe you never," Brendon chokes out, "you're so -- fuck, Ryan, like that, oh fuck, you're so fucking good at this, how do you, oh --" 

Ryan gags a little as Brendon hits the back of his throat, tries to swallow through it and gags again. Brendon doesn't loosen his grip and Ryan doesn't even really want him to, wants Brendon to hold on as long and as tight as it takes to let go, to lose himself in this like he has every other time they've fucked together. 

He feels Brittany slide up the bed, vaguely hears her say, low, "Don't be an asshole," and Ryan's pretty sure he's not talking to him, especially when she says, "Be a good boy, Brendon, come on, are you close, are you?" And Brendon moans like he's being ripped apart and fucks into Ryan's mouth one more time before his hands are pushing instead of pulling, shoving Ryan's head away. 

Ryan keeps a hold on Brendon's hips, keeps him close as he jerks him the rest of the way, bending his head to lick across the head of Brendon's cock. "Fuck," Brendon says, and Ryan can't see his face but it almost sounds like he's crying. His legs are sliding around under Ryan's chest and he says Ryan's name, tight and scared as he comes, half across Ryan's cheek, the rest over Ryan's back. Ryan feels a splatter on his shoulderblade and pushes his dick into the mattress, burying his face in the crook of Brendon's thigh.

After a while, after Ryan's felt his need to get up on his knees and fuck Brendon harder than he fucked Brittany slowly, mostly dissipate, he can tell Brendon's asleep, has slipped into the even, wet breathing Ryan's heard a thousand nights on the bus. He keeps his eyes closed and tries to pick out Brittany in the chorus of inhales and exhales but he can't tell, he hasn't woken up slumped on her chest after a movie in the back lounge or blinked awake drooling on her shoulder in a van or slept shoulder to shoulder in a tiny apartment, swallowing down secrets he's never told anyone but Spencer. 

He carefully pushes himself up. Brittany is curled next to Brendon, looking right at Ryan, so he climbs over Brendon's legs and settles along his other side. He and Brittany stare at each other, each passing minute making Ryan feel more stubborn and immature. 

He could do this all night. He can wait as long as it takes for Brendon to wake up and drive them home and maybe she gets late-night dinner confessions but he gets Brendon's songs and months on the bus and maybe one day he'll be ready for the rest, one day he  _ will _ and Ryan is the one who will be there, Ryan is the one who will have always been there. 

Finally Brittany blinks and Ryan is ashamed of the surge of triumph he feels, blood surging up his spine in victory. She holds one finger above Brendon's mouth, his lips parted slightly as he sleeps, but doesn't touch him. When she brings her hand back and sweeps her bangs out of her eyes, Ryan can't breathe. She doesn't smile when she speaks. "You have to tell him," she says, and before he can answer, before he can act like there's nothing to tell, she rolls out of bed, smooth and graceful right up until she kicks the mattress, jostling Brendon into consciousness. "Time's up, boys," she says.


	6. Six

**Six**

Ryan/Brendon 

Back on the road, back to the routine but the crowds just get bigger and louder and every time Brendon thrusts a fist in the air and demands they scream back they do, a thunderous "wedding!" that makes Ryan's hands shake. They built this, they made this happen, they are fucking  _ rock stars _ and Ryan's not even sure what that means except that everyone expects them to do whatever they want and never apologize for it.

With Jon there for good, they settle into a new four-against-the-world groove, somehow more comfortable than they'd ever all been before. Spencer stops giving Ryan heavy, questioning looks and Jon doesn't know any way for Brendon and Ryan to be around each other but how they are now.

How they are now is still a shifting, blurry line, but it's less a tightrope and more a meandering path, a yellow brick road through a field of red poppies. One day, Brendon lies on his back in a patch of grass next to the bus and, when Ryan sits next to him, moves to rest his head in Ryan's lap. "This is nice," Brendon says, and tries to blow a whistle through a blade of grass. When it's time to leave he pulls Ryan up and doesn't let go of his hand until they've crossed a state line. 

Ryan's not entirely sure, but it feels kind of like they're dating. He doesn't think Brendon has noticed yet. 

On the drive home from Brittany's, before they got back on the road, they'd both been quiet, her  _ tell him tell him tell him _ echoing like a demented dance beat in Ryan's head until he couldn't think of anything else to say, and he couldn't say that, not yet, so he didn't say anything at all.

When Brendon pulled up to his house, Ryan fumbled for the seat belt and the lock and when he finally summoned a tiny ounce of bravery all he could get out was Brendon's name. Brendon's eyes were still wide and pleased with himself, had been since they'd gotten dressed on the same side of Brittany's bed, throwing each other's clothes at the proper owner and pulling their pants on like it was a race. Brendon had kissed Brittany slow and serious as they left, holding her face in his hands, and she'd still looked a little sad as Ryan brushed his lips across her cheek and muttered "thanks" before she shut the door behind them. 

In Brendon's dad's car, parked in front of Ryan's dad's house,  _ tell him tell him tell him _ in his veins, Ryan had swallowed down the aftertaste of Brendon's name and waited for once for Brendon to make the first move. Brendon shook his head a little, the smile quirking down, and when he ducked his head toward Ryan's, Ryan held his breath. Brendon's lips landed on his jaw, dry and soft, and he whispered Ryan's name as he pulled back, "Ryan," he said, like that was all there was to it. Ryan said, "See you," and opened the door.

He'd thought things would be weird, that they'd be back to their own demented drawing board of sex and self-doubt and shame lurking in every silence but at the airport Brendon had hugged him so hard Ryan worried about cracking a rib and that was it, they were off, and if it had been a game of sheer will to make the same mistakes over and over again before now they both seemed as determined to be happy right where they were. 

Still the first time they have a night off in a hotel Ryan holds back, drops down to tie his perfectly knotted shoe until the rooms are sorted out and a hand is waving a keycard in front of his face, Brendon's fingers gripping the plastic. Ryan gets to his feet and Brendon presses the key into his palm, its corners digging hard into flesh as Brendon tugs him towards the elevators and says, "Hotel party?"

Ryan laughs dutifully and says, "Yeah, right." They've all been saying they couldn't wait for a night with real showers and actual beds and, Brendon or not, that's Ryan's plan for the evening. 

"Come on, Ryan," Brendon whispers, sagging against him as they wrestle with the key. "We're rock stars now, right? We have to maintain a certain reputation." 

"I think that's your department," Ryan says, and calls first shower as soon as the door opens. When he gets out, feeling marginally more alive, Brendon all but knocks him down on the way to take his turn. Ryan's watching a subtitled movie on HBO, something about a prisoner and a prostitute, when Brendon walks out in a cloud of steam, completely nude as per usual, drying his hair with a towel. He stands between the two beds and ruffles through his bag, back to Ryan as he sighs happily at finding a pair of boxers and worn shirt that pass his smell test. 

Ryan glances back at the TV but his French isn't quite good enough any more to fill in the blanks of a plotline that barely made sense to start off with, and when Brendon bounces onto the mattress beside him, propping himself up with a pillow, Ryan flips to an old Golden Girls rerun instead. They laugh at a couple jokes and make fun of a dumb infomercial at a break and Brendon crosses and uncrosses his legs a dozen times until Ryan absently grabs his knee to make him stop. His leg is warm, the hair on his thigh still a little damp. Ryan would move his hand away, but Brendon pins his arm down with a sharp elbow until they're both stuck, pretzeled up as Blanche and Dorothy go another round in the same argument they've been having the whole episode.

When it's over, Brendon says, "It was kind of crazy out on the line tonight." 

Ryan had hung back from that, too, let Brendon and Jon do fan duty for the evening so he could have another minute talking to the tech about his pedal shorting out again.

"Did you hear those girls?" Brendon asks, and it's too careful, this conversation, too determined for Ryan's taste because any serious talk means he feels like a complete fucking asshole for not just grabbing Brendon by the shoulders and saying -- and saying, saying  _ something _ monumental, something even bigger than all this. He likes big words, he's good at them, but he can't make any of them stick to Brendon.

"Those girls are always crazy," he says, cautiously.

"There's crazy and then there's -- I am pretty sure I had no idea what double penetration was when I was 14."

Ryan can't fucking help it. He laughs. "Is that --" He laughs and laughs and then Brendon laughs too, both of them curled around each other, giggling and snorting and as soon as one of them calms down the other starts it off again.

"That was the offer I was made tonight, yup," Brendon says finally, and Ryan hiccups one last laugh as Brendon settles his head on Ryan's shoulder. "For me and the bandmate of my choosing, of course. I don't know, do you think it's too soon for Jon?"

"Jon was in a band before. I'm sure he's had worse offers."

"Hey," Brendon protests mildly. "I never called it a  _ bad _ offer."

Ryan smiles against Brendon's hair, a tiny, guilty weight in his stomach at having successfully again avoided something serious. On the TV now they have Full House and Brendon shakes his head a little at Mary-Kate or Ashley stuttering through a simple sentence. 

If they're dating, if that's what this is, if they can do that and have this without some painful moment of truth, Ryan would almost trade that for the sex. Then Brendon breathes deeply in and out, air fluttering across Ryan's collarbone and skating down his shirt, and Ryan has to fight with every nerve in his body not to flinch, not to thrust his hips up or flip Brendon over and sink his teeth into Brendon's chest until his nipples are every bit as hard as Ryan's.

Maybe Brendon can feel him tense anyway, though. He squeezes Ryan's side and says, "Did -- did you want me to bring her back?"

"Gang-banging underage girls is so 1987," Ryan says, and if he was sure biting down hard at that moment would sever his tongue from his body, he would do it.

"You're an asshole," Brendon responds, but doesn't move away.

It's so shocking to be called on his shit by Brendon that Ryan just sits there, waiting for whatever is coming next. Whatever it is, he either deserves it or he so, so doesn't. 

"Do you want to find some other girl?" Brendon asks, and he doesn't even seem nervous, just a little annoyed, like Ryan is acting especially retarded that day, exactly like he would if Ryan couldn't make up his mind between cereals or which jacket to wear on a food run. 

It's so fucking normal, so the opposite of monumental and serious that Ryan simply says what first comes to mind, which is, "No, I don't want to  _ find _ anyone else at all," and once that's out it's easy to add, "just you," though it's not a real sentence, it's barely anything but this huge blinding thought, the constant answer to  _ tell him _ .

"Oh," Brendon says, and shifts around until he can see Ryan's face, holding himself up and away with one arm against the headboard. "I thought -- I wasn't sure," he says, and he looks genuinely taken aback. Ryan doesn't want to add more doubt to Brendon's life, doesn't want to be the cause of it.

"I don't particularly want to share," Ryan says, slumping down even more and crossing his arms. "If that's what you're asking." 

"Yeah," Brendon says, considering. "I'm over that too." 

Then he bends in and kisses Ryan on the mouth, lips parted, tongue peeking out, precise and almost too sweet. Ryan pushes up and fists one hand in Brendon's shirt at the same time, and the next kiss is harder, almost painful, teeth in all the wrong places, but it's better, closer to the Brendon he's been circling around all this time. He can taste Brendon's smirk and feel his thudding heart and, there, right there, if he slides down another inch and tilts his hips, there's Brendon's dick pushing hard against Ryan's thigh.

Brendon pulls back and says, wet and husky, "Yeah, that's what I was asking." 

"I've had worse offers," Ryan says, and for his trouble gets a bony knee pressed to the inside of his leg. 

"I know exactly what kind of offers you get." 

"They pale in comparison." 

Brendon nips at his cheek with a happy grin. "You have yet to see my best work," he promises.

"I could --" 

Ryan loses that train of thought as Brendon licks down his neck, face pressed warm and unabashed into the curve of Ryan's throat. "Mmm?" he inquires from somewhere around Ryan's collarbone.

Ryan tries to clear his throat and find a full sentence. "I could certainly pick certain, uh, yeah, sounds out of a lineup." 

Brendon looks up. "Sounds? Like sex sounds?" 

Ryan slides a hand up the back of Brendon's t-shirt, scraping nails across the base of his spine, and Brendon hangs his head down and moans, not all showy, just a low, unbidden growl. 

"Fuck, Ryan," Brendon rasps out, and Ryan buries a groan in Brendon's hair. "Ah," he says, pushing Ryan's shirt up more and kissing lightly down his chest. "I get it. Sounds like talking sounds. Yeah, I  _ have _ noticed you like it when I talk."

Brendon noticed. Brendon  _ noticed _ .

"You like it when I get all filthy, don't you? When I let my fucking mouth get away from me and I just say every nasty, dirty thing I think of."

Brendon licks a circle around Ryan's bellybutton and Ryan feels his back arch off the bed. 

"You know what I like?" 

Brendon pulls away and Ryan finally shakes his head no. "No, what," he says, and uses his last remaining coordinated motion to strip his own shirt off. 

Brendon smiles, pleased, and dips his nose just under the V of Ryan's bare ribs, lips moving against Ryan's skin when he talks. "I like watching you fuck," Brendon says, and Ryan can hear himself gasp. "You get so intense, when you're fucking, so totally zoned in on -- on whoever it is," Brendon says. "It's like you think there's some special combination, some map for where to touch and how hard and that will be all it takes, and you're so -- you're so fucking focused, Ryan, it's like there's nothing else in the world." 

Ryan blinks once, then again, and is fairly confident that when he says "you" it's actually spoken out loud. 

"Could you hear me?" Brendon asks, sliding Ryan's pajama pants down an inch at a time. "Like that, even when you're like that, were you listening to me?" 

Ryan tries to force a noise out of his throat but he feels so thirsty, so starving, so desperate for anything Brendon is going to give him. 

"You were, you were totally listening," Brendon says and, oh, thank god, he knows. He's known all this time, fuck. "And I was watching," he continues, like Ryan isn't reeling, skin on fire and mind in wild waves as Brendon peels his clothes off and licks his way back up. "You know your arms shake when you're about to come? Your arms shake and your hands clench and you bite your lip, god, Ryan, you bite your lip so hard I always think it'll bleed. I always wonder how you don't hurt yourself like that." 

Brendon hovers right above Ryan's cock, grinning crookedly. 

"I guess everyone has a first time, huh," he says softly, and Ryan chokes out a few consonants and maybe a stray vowel as Brendon tongues across the head. Not that all the rest of what Brendon's been doing for the last few minutes, months, years, whatever it's been that feels like an eternity -- not that it hasn't ruined Ryan for the world  _ forever _ , but Brendon's mouth closes around Ryan's cock and everything rushes in, sound and fury and Technicolor and fuck, fuck, they're doing this, Ryan's naked and Brendon's sucking him slowly, infuriatingly, and it wasn't even Ryan's idea, it wasn't any plan, there was no catalyst except them them  _ them _ . 

He tangles his hands in Brendon's hair and as soon as Brendon comes up for air wrestles him onto his back, tugging wildly at his boxers and t-shirt and demanding, "Off, take these off," and Brendon does. "Talk," he says, and Brendon laughs back and says, "Focus," but then they're skin to skin, knees to chests, dicks sliding together and neither is doing much of anything but grunting and trying to rub against each other gracelessly.

"Fuck," Ryan says, and Brendon kisses the last trace of the sound out of his mouth. He struggles against the weight of Ryan's body until they're both twisted up on their sides, thighs locked tight, hands holding each other as close as possible and Ryan can feel Brendon's muscles bunching in his back, he can taste some bitter, desperate adrenaline in Brendon's mouth, can smell the heavy sweet musk of Brendon's spunk in the air as the friction between them gets slicker and faster. He doesn't let Brendon's tongue out of his reach long enough to form words, even when every other touch is scattered and fleeting and, "fuck," Ryan says, biting Brendon's lip when he comes, kissing Brendon hard as he follows.

"We should have done this a long time ago," Ryan says a while later, when they've kicked down the comforter and crawled under the sheets. Brendon shakes his head, hair tickling Ryan's chin. "No? But we could --"

"No," Brendon says. "It wasn't -- not then, we -- no." He dances his fingers up and down Ryan's arm, their breathing finally even.

"No," Ryan agrees, finally. They weren't. 

"Anyway if we had," Brendon says, and tilts his chin up to look at Ryan. "I would've thought -- I would have thought this is how you were with everyone. I wouldn't have known." 

Ryan cranes his neck down to kiss Brendon. "No," he says. "Just you." 

  
  


END.


End file.
